Life goes by at just the right speed on a bike

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I had been concerned about how I’d do today, after missing Thursday’s ride for my treadmill test. A few aches and pains associated with that test didn’t help alleviate my fears. But y’know, you get back on the bike, you point it up a hill, and you just go. Maybe not as fast as the week before, but it’s still fun, you still see something new each time, even when it’s a route you’ve done over and over and over.

One of (at least) 4 peacocks at the house outside of Pescadero

That route being the usual. Up Old LaHonda, over Haskins, lunch & cookie in Pescadero, Stage Road and return via Tunitas.

Old LaHonda was right at 24 mintues; Kevin was being kind and stayed with me the whole way up. As usual I felt better on Haskins, and even better on Stage. Tunitas? Yeah, well, we had to stop a couple times for emergency vehicles (one that was taking care of a tree that had recently fallen, not sure of the other) and it just didn’t seem like a day we had to kill ourselves.

 

Most-interesting thing on the ride was discovering not one, not two, but four peacocks at the house on Stage Road just outside of Pescadero. The house that used to have the metal sculpture machine-gun-man outside.

 

Another round of torture (V02 test)

Personal stuff

My selfie from Thursday-morning’s V02 test. 🙂 OMG that was awful, putting me on a treadmill. I asked them, please, put me on the bike. Nope. They said you can’t get a hard enough workout. Idiots. Extremely-frustrating experience, because seriously, I am not good on my feet.

No mask either; I got to breathe through a scuba-type mouthpiece (plus nose clamp).

The test involves stepping up effort to exhaustion. The problem, for me, is that I simply can’t run that fast. I’m hearing and feeling my feet pounding, hard, on the belt. It’s not fun. You’re not in control of anything, like you’d be on an ergobike, where you can change your cadence.

You can’t see your heart rate, and the experience was so unpleasant that it was my feet that took me out of the game. I pushed as much as I could but at some point was in fear of the lack of control and whether it was about to speed up more. I did manage to get to the point where my breathing and “cadence” were sync’d and there was noplace left to go. I asked afterward if my heart rate had gotten above 160, and for how long. Yes, but only for a minute, at the end.

I would love to do another test, on a real bike, and see how I’d do. I am always suspicious of “tests” that, I think, are influenced by talent or pain tolerance. Like a plank test. I have *zero* core strength, but I do well on a plank test because I have a high tolerance for pain.

Forgot perhaps the most-annoying thing. At the end of the test, they have a list of reasons why you concluded it. Such things as, legs hurt, ran out of breath, overall exhaustion, stuff like that. No option for “thought I’d fly off the treadmill.” There’s an assumption that treadmill “speed” = physical workout. No thought given to someone who is simply too clumsy to run quickly. Maybe they could have simply increased the tilt? Such thoughts went through my mind at the time, but you can only give hand signals when you’re gripping a breathing tube with your mouth.